


Drowning With You

by surreallis



Category: Law and Order: Special Victims Unit
Genre: Angst, F/M, Het
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-17
Updated: 2010-04-17
Packaged: 2017-10-09 00:09:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/80890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/surreallis/pseuds/surreallis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's always been like swimming in the ocean with him. Rise and fall and sometimes she can't breathe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drowning With You

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Michelle for the eagle-eyes.

[]

She hits the water back first, the force of the slap right between her shoulder blades. And then she is under the surface, breath cut off, Elliot's weight separating from her, tearing away.

She barely had time to take a breath, and she feels frozen. Not from the wetness, because it's been raining all day and storming for the last hour, so she's already soaked through. But from the cold, and the weight, and the sheer shock of being suddenly enveloped.

She sinks and she forgot to close her eyes (maybe she didn't have time) and it's black there, underneath, when it's nighttime. She feels the drag of her clothes, her boots, as her body rolls and her feet sink down. For a moment it's silent, still, and she hesitates there for a long, long time, suspended, in that moment before sinking or floating.

Too long, and she kicks, and her body moves.

When she breaks the surface, it is into a maelstrom. The boat is _right there_ and the rain is torrential, the waves choppy. She pushes off from the hull and there is shouting, flashing lights, water rolling up over her head.

There's a sharp snap next to her ear, and another one, and they are shooting at her, and she twists in the waves and tries to swim away. It is slow and her limbs are heavy and the waves have their way with her.

_I am in the Atlantic_, she thinks. _The ocean._

It seems a stupid thought, but she's never been about panicking. Even now.

"Olivia!" She hears, and it Elliot in his desperate voice. The one he only uses when he thinks their time has come.

"Here!" she yells, and there are new snapping sounds around her, and she ducks under and tries to swim beneath the waves. When she comes up again, the boat is further away. It is too big to turn easily, and the darkness of the night, the chaos of the storm, hides her.

"Elliot," she calls, but not in her biggest voice. She wants to stay hidden.

There's no answer, and she treads water and looks around. The choppiness of the surface impedes her view, but she sees the lights of shore to her left, the dark shadow of the rolling boat straight on, flashlight beams and flood lamps swaying back and forth across the waves.

She can hear the dull hiss of the rain as it hits around her, the chugging of the boat engine, the sound of thunder. When lightning flashes, she looks around, tries to find Elliot.

"Elliot!"

"Here!" He answers finally, but she still can't see him. The boat is turning now, but the slow curve it has to take is moving it further away. The storm is loud enough.

"Elliot!" she yells again, loudly. "Where?"

He yells back, and they keep it up, until in another flash of lightning she sees his dark head bobbing in the waves, his shoulders up as he struggles to swim toward her.

She kicks in his direction and they almost collide. His hands wrap in her jacket and his knees hit hers as they both kick to keep afloat. Her nerves are fading a little, letting the cold in, and the panic. She coughs out water in her throat.

"Swim," he says, and his voice next to her ear is so familiar and consoling. "This way." And he lunges forward, away from the boat, perpendicular to the shore, his hand dragging her with him, his fingers curled so tightly into her jacket that his knuckles are sharp as her head drops and they brush her jaw.

They swim. In the exertion she is almost hot, and her legs are strong but her shoulders ache. The storm isn't a violent one. It isn't a tempest, and while the water is choppy, it isn't overwhelming. At least not yet.

The boat heads on an angle, toward them, toward the shore, and it's obvious they haven't been found.

"Stop," Elliot gasps, and she doesn't like the feeling when they do. The way her body pulls downward and her chin hits the water. He's kicking powerfully next to her, holding her up and he pulls at her jacket. "Take it off," he orders, and she knows she needs to shuck the extra weight. He's in his undershirt and when his feet hit hers, she can feel that they're bare. Maybe the Marines taught him.

She struggles out of the jacket before she takes a breath and ducks under, trying to untie her boots. The laces are wet and difficult. When she comes up again she gasps in the air and clings to Elliot and says, "They're too tight."

His hand pushes the hair out of her face, and in the lightning she sees his eyes, blue and intense and riveted on her. "Float," he says, pushing her onto her back.

She floats, but it's hard. The rain hits her face and it is a hard sting. Elliot grabs one of her legs and lifts it up. She feels his fingers on her laces. He gets one, and the boot comes off and disappears into the depths. The other is the one she yanked on, and it's tight. She fans her arms through the water, keeping herself afloat, tiring, and he uses his teeth, finally ripping through the lace and loosening it. Then she's bootless and lighter and treading water again and the force of her kicks sheds her socks.

"Are you okay?" she asks, suddenly, and for a moment they are enmeshed. His hands in her shirt, hers on his shoulders and their legs tangling together as they try to stay upright and floating. She can see him now, even in the darkness. The water reflects the glow of the storm clouds and he is so close. She is remembering the shots.

"Yeah," he says. "You?"

"Yeah."

He looks at her and the boat is moving toward shore again, fading. "We have to swim to shore," he says.

She nods. Talking seems to take too much energy.

"Olivia," he says, and his voice is rough. "_Tell_ me if you get tired. I'll tow you. Don't go under on me. Please."

She nods again, and she wonders if they will make it, because she's not at all sure they will. And she's suddenly realizing their night is just beginning.

[]

They swim like frogs at first, not wanting to raise their arms up above the waves, in case the boat drifts closer. It's a slow stroke, and the rain pours into her eyes and her side aches and she is starting to feel the cold seep into her joints.

No one knows they are there except the kidnappers in the boat. She isn't even sure where they are. Which shore they're swimming toward. It looks close, but they are swimming against the storm and that makes it a thousand miles away. They were on the boat for nearly three hours before Elliot made the bid for freedom, diving off the deck, catching her with his arms and his weight to drive her ahead of him, the shouts from the kidnappers following them down, down into the churning sea.

They were headed north. They could be off the coast of Nova Scotia for all she knows.

"Rest," Elliot says, and they float for a while. Her legs scream in relief, but it's short-lived. It still takes effort to stay above the surface.

He takes her hands, puts them on his shoulders. "Relax," he says, and he's on autopilot, she can see. He supports her for a while, and every muscle in her body goes into sheer, mind-numbing pleasure as she catches her breath.

"I guess the Marines were good for something," she says. And she smiles and licks the rain off her lips.

He meets her gaze, and the tide is shoving them together again and again. "We're going to make it," he says. And she nods.

She thinks that really, they have to, because no one knows that Lacy Roderick is locked in a trunk in the hold of that boat except them.

After a while they start to swim again, and she watches the boat as the searchlights pass over and over the waves. It seems like hours, but she knows it's not. With the lightning, she sees they are swimming into a wide cove. There are air-traffic control lights but nothing else. The land is a dark blur.

They watch as the boat turns again, the searchlights disappearing, even the running lights going out, and then it churns toward the open sea, and she knows they have been given up as dead. Or lost. The kidnappers will run for it, maybe into international waters where they might be untouchable.

They rest for a while and watch warily, their hands hanging onto each other's clothing to keep from drifting apart.

In minutes they are alone, the boat only a fading shadow.

The sound of the rain settles around them, and the thunder rumbles above, and the cold sea lifts them up and drops them down and for a moment she is in Elliot's arms, feeling his solid, muscled body as he kicks to keep them afloat. And even now it feels like something a little extravagant. Something a little illicit.

They were sitting in the squad only this morning, drinking their coffee, talking about the case, smiling and trying not to look at each other too deeply. So automatic by now that it feels like instinct.

"It's freezing," she says, and her teeth are beginning to chatter, even though it's early summer and the days are often hot.

"I know," he says, and his arms seem to tighten and draw her closer. "We have to keep going."

They break apart and swim again, and now she only looks at the dark shadow of the shore. It feels like they're barely moving.

In moments her muscles are aching and tired, and she can feel herself weakening. When she falters, her head slips under, and it happens so quickly she feels a thread of pure fear rip through her gut and up into her throat.

_This is what it's like_, she thinks. What it's like to drown. To be alone and far from shore, or even close, but you just don't have the strength to reach safety. She can feel terror just there, right below the surface of her skin, and it makes her feel even colder.

"God," she gasps, and she fights it.

And Elliot is there too, and he is putting her hands on his shoulders again, but she can feel him shaking now, from weariness or fear or the cold. Maybe all of them.

They are too far, she thinks. They are too far from the shore and they are going to drown, and she starts to think about what it will feel like, and the fear that settles into her gut is so piercing that it almost takes her breath away. She wants the bullet. She wants the quickness and the pain and the ground solid underneath her dying body. She doesn't want this. She doesn't want to sink into the cold and just disappear.

"Olivia, goddamn it!" Elliot's voice is hard in her ear, and his arms are hard around her, and she moves with his kicks and wraps her arms around his torso, and for a moment her face is warm with her tears as she hugs him.

He hugs her back, so tightly she can barely move, and for an instant they sink below the surface into the silent, thick depths. She can feel the heat pressed between them, even though it feels like there is no warmth left in her blood. And his lips press against her neck, and she thinks that if they're going to die anyway then they might as well forget all the pretense, so she presses her mouth to his shoulder and then his neck, and then he kicks and they are surfacing again, and she gasps great mouthfuls of air.

She feels calmer.

"You should go," she blurts. "If you can make it without me."

He is angry then, and grabbing at her, trying to kick ahead and drag her with him. "Fuck you, Olivia," he says, and she thinks his voice breaks. "Fuck you! Fuck you."

_No_, she thinks, protesting. _I'm not trying to be a martyr._

"Your family," she gasps. "It's just that…"

"Don't you fucking give up," he snarls, and she can see his furious face in the lightning. He shakes her, as much as he's able to in the weight of the ocean.

_I'm not doing that_, she thinks. _Am I?_

She must look genuinely confused, because he grabs her around the neck with one arm and pulls her into him and he's kicking hard. She has to lift her legs to get them out of his way. "Don't you fucking know by now?" he demands. "That I can't do this job without you?"

She does, she supposes. But…

"Don't you fucking know," he demands again, and again his voice breaks, and his expression is painful. Tired and still angry but defeated too. "How much I…" He's panting in his frustration, in his exhaustion. "That you are…"

She can't see enough of his eyes, but she can feel the way he's stripped bare. She is too. The stormy sea has washed it all away: the denial, the pretense, the excuses. All of it gone, and only their most basic emotions are left. The ones that they've used to build on all this time.

She nods then. "Yes," she says, and she blinks away the rain. "I know." And she kicks her legs and treads water and she says, "Rest, and then we'll swim for as long as it takes." And she realizes the ambiguity of her own words.

He does rest. Maybe he can't help it. He's shaking and weak and he grabs hold but casts himself out to arm's length so he isn't dragging her down, and he rests as she kicks, and when her hands slip under the hem of his T-shirt and touch his bare side, his skin is as cold as the water.

She ignores it all for a minute. The sea and the rain and the storm and the shore, and she watches him, holds his gaze steadily with hers.

_This is it_, he seems to say. _There is no more._

No more fight. Not for the ocean or for the forces that keep them apart.

"It's okay," she says, calmly. Because eleven years is a long time, and they can't fight forever. She kicks and grabs his shirt and tows him toward her, and then she presses her lips against his.

He makes a sound, and his legs suddenly kick with hers, and he opens his mouth, and he is still warm there.

They sink again. Slowly.

When they surface, she feels like drifting.

"Swim," he growls, right in her ear, and his hands shove her ahead.

So she swims, full-out, in a freestyle crawl, checking for glances of him as she turns her head for a breath; and he is there, moving with her.

Numb, numb. She has to go numb. She focuses on moving, on pushing through the cold and the pain, and he calls her name sometimes, from close-by. She answers him so they can keep track.

And when it feels like hours later, she looks up, and the shore is huge in front of her. Rocky cliffs and tan sand leading up to a wooded bluff, and Elliot puts his hand on her shoulder, pushing her forward.

The waves come in and break against her back, and forward she goes, until her feet hit the bottom and she is stumbling in waist-high water, her legs weak under her sudden weight. The tide pulls back at her, and she falls, and Elliot is falling beside her, his hands grabbing at her anywhere he can find purchase, and they struggle and limp their way up the sloped, wet shore to the dry sand above.

She collapses in a trembling heap, her lungs feeling like the edge of a razorblade as she sucks in oxygen and her muscles give up in relief. Elliot lies beside her and she hears his gasps, and she thinks she should laugh or maybe cry with the realization that they've made it, but mostly she is so exhausted and so unmasked that she can't even move.

The air and the rain are warmer than the ocean was. Not warm enough to stop her shivering, but it feels oddly cleansing in a way. Above her the clouds are starting to lighten, and she realizes that dawn is coming. She wonders how long they were in the water.

When their hard breaths soften, Elliot shifts beside her and she feels his hands sliding over her, shaking too badly to grasp, and she turns toward him and into his arms, and for awhile they shiver together.

Eventually, the warmth comes. Like a slowly rising wisp of smoke. It unfurls and makes her moan a little in relief. The cold is too bone-deep to be banished quickly, but the thaw of her skin against his is a sharp ache.

"Are you okay?" he asks then, voice hoarse. "Are you okay? Are you okay?" And his hands are skimming over her back, over her arms, down to her legs as he breaks away from her a bit to look her over.

She nods, because she's clenching her teeth so hard that she can't talk, and he hugs her again, and this time the heat is immediate and euphoric.

Her teeth stop chattering but her bones remain frozen.

In the blue light of the stormy dawn, he lifts his head and looks at her, and she sees that churning ocean in his eyes. The wave of wanting that hits her is startling in its strength. They are alive and they are whole—maybe more whole than they've ever been either together or apart—and she wants to run her hands over his shoulders and his chest. Over all the muscle and scar tissue he's built up over the years. She wants to slide her tongue into his mouth until she's drowning in his taste. She wants to pull him inside of her until they're so warm it feels like flames are rushing under her skin.

He sees it, maybe.

His lips part and his breath slips out slowly and she hears him swallow. He shivers against her, and she doesn't think it's from the cold.

It isn't about sex though. At least not only about sex. Because their bodies are still too weak, and she isn't even sure she can stand, much less walk, and they are still shaking against one another. It is more, she thinks, about being naked and clean and redeemed in front of each other.

"The boat," she says, softly. And he lifts away from her, but not far, so she can sit up and they can scan the now visible bay for the boat. It is long gone.

They have no guns and no cell phones, and even if they did they'd have been useless after so long in the saltwater. Her bare feet are freezing and numb, and she draws them up to wrap her fingers around her toes. Elliot stretches his legs, painfully, and they glance around.

The beach is wild and barren, with no lights or buildings, but there is a fire pit, and when Elliot finally stands with a groan and walks around a bit, he finds a path leading up the embankment.

He helps her stand, and her legs threaten to give out with her first step. She feels achingly exhausted and weak, and she's glad her feet are numb once they start down the rock-strewn path.

It's slow going, and she grips his hand with as much strength as she can. He steadies them against the trees, and in the light patter of the rain against the leaves above them it is almost peaceful in a weird way. Like they have survived the end of the world and now it is just about living.

At the top of the embankment there are picnic tables, and then a parking lot, and they walk slowly along the grass and there is a ranger's station. Locked and empty, but there is a pay phone, and Elliot dials 911 and then they sit down on the wooden steps of the station to wait.

The rain has let up a bit. It comes down lightly across the parking lot and they sit with their backs against the station walls so the eaves protect them. Her clothes are still soaked, and she is still cold, but she is too tired to shake anymore.

She is pressed against Elliot's side, and his warmth is effusive. She tilts her head back against the wall and they watch the road leading in and he finally says, "I don't think we can ever go back."

And she knows what he means. That there are different paths back to New York, different lives they have to return to, and not all of them are going to be valid anymore.

Maybe none of them.

[] [] [] [] []

Cold and rainy and her street is dark, deserted in the storm. The pavement shines like a black sea.

It's a slow walk down her block, and she leaves her hood down and gets soaked. Strange the way the rain can bring relief now. Even as it turns her skin frigid. It runs in rivulets through her hair, down over her eyes.

She sits for a while, on her steps, thinking and watching, feeling the steady drive of the rain. Listening. She's been numb for so long that the icy water feels good.

Her body has long since healed from the night they'd nearly drowned, but the ocean still rocks a bit inside of her.

It's hard to sleep in a way, in her own bed. With the mattress hard underneath her and her own warmth surrounding her. The rain pattering against the window. It feels a little crazy sometimes, the way she walks home in the rain, sometimes stripping her jacket off so she can feel the cold weight of it seep into her skin.

Time passes. The rain doesn't let up.

Eventually she stands and goes up to her apartment.

[]

He's there. Standing by the window. She should be surprised, she supposes, but that part of her is frozen.

"Where've you been?" he asks, and she hears what he isn't saying. They didn't have plans. He just knows when she left work, because he left at the same time.

"I walked," she says. Watches him.

He is different in the shadows then he is in the daylight.

"It's raining," he says. Accuses.

She shrugs. Her coat is drenched, and she peels it off. The summer heat has been gone for days and the apartment is cool. Her skin is colder. Her heart coldest. "Bad day," she says, quietly.

He nods. Walks toward her. She takes a breath, because she's going under. His eyes are so blue...

"What do you want?" she asks. She never expects his answer, even though it never changes.

"You," he says, and steps closer. "Always you."

She always sinks.

It's a slow, quiet summer, and she doesn't think she can take it much longer.

[] [] [] [] []

When the Atlantic is serious, it's a sight to behold.

It churns a gunmetal gray and rolls into white waves against the shore, and it's a massive, slowly rising body. The early evening sky is slate above it, and she watches from the walkout deck attached to her room of a mostly-empty beachfront hotel. The hurricane that pummels the Carolinas to the south has emptied the coast, even this far north where only the tendrils of the storm have reached.

The rain starts on the beach below, and the wind blows icy against her bare skin. She's wrapped in a blanket from the bed, her feet bare, her tank top thin, and only a pair of shorts to protect her legs.

_The traumas of our childhood become the desires of our adulthood_, her old therapist once told her. She was trying to explain why Olivia seemed to always find herself with the bad guys. _We are doomed to relive our worst moments, time and time again._

Is that what she's doing? It seems very counter-productive.

The waves crash and the rain sweeps and she lets the blanket sag a bit, feeling more of the cold breeze, more of the wet spray. She doesn't want to be in the ocean, that isn't it. The night she and Elliot swam for their lives, the sea wasn't this angry. They'd have died together that night if it had been.

She can't quite settle it all in her mind. That they were in this massive body of water and they somehow made it out again.

Behind her, in the room, she hears the door open, and she wants to be surprised but she isn't. He's always known her best, even when he wasn't listening. She left the key on her desk, and she left the decision up to him.

He's the one with the most to lose. But something has to change, and she can't contain it anymore.

He hesitates in the patio doorway, and she glances at him with a faint, resigned smile. It doesn't feel like a happy thing. It feels… inescapable.

He doesn't say anything. He looks at her and at the stormy ocean for a long, long time, and she leans against the deck railing and closes her eyes against the cold mist that settles on her eyelashes.

And then he's there, his hands hot against her neck, against her cheeks as he presses against her. She opens her mouth as he presses his lips to hers, and then she's kissing him and the rain is falling on them both.

[]

She doesn't feel the cold of her own body until he touches her. Until she's up against the hotel room wall and his hands are under her shirt, and his skin is so warm. He strips her clothes away and then struggles out of his shirt. The water in her hair runs down, trails over her breasts. He puts his mouth on her shoulder, follows it down, his tongue hot as he licks. It's startling.

"You're freezing," he murmurs. His voice has a raspy quality that has always hit her low.

"I'm fine," she insists, because she is. She thinks she is.

He kisses her. Presses his hot mouth against hers, and his body comes in close and pins her to the wall, and he's like a furnace. Her skin aches as it heats.

"Olivia," he groans, as she pulls him close, and he drops his hands to shove his jeans down, far enough so he can press against her, naked and hard, like he just has to get himself against her bare skin.

She gets the sheets wet when she slides naked, between them. In the rapidly darkening room, he takes the rest of his clothes off with slow deliberation, and she watches him. He seems less naked now than he was in the ocean, but it still sends a snaking heat through her belly.

When he presses against her on the bed, she takes deep breaths. He is warm and hard. The hair on his legs is rough. The skin of his shoulders is smooth. His mouth is wet and strong. He licks the rain off her skin and she shivers. He sucks one cold nipple into his mouth and she arches at the way it feels hot.

She slides her arms under his, around his ribs, and she pulls him on top of her, and he exhales shakily and kisses her.

When he slides inside of her, she feels like she might burn up. She makes a wordless sound and he moves against her, and she feels like they're in the waves again. Rocking, rocking. He's slow, and he presses hard, and he breathes brokenly against her temple as his back arches above her and she curls her fingers into his hips.

She almost can't breathe, and her mind is spinning, and she closes her eyes and just feels him, everywhere.

The orgasm takes her by surprise, with almost no warning, and she gasps and pulls him against her so hard he falters. He groans then, and breaks the silence with a "God… Olivia." And she moves with him, muscles loose and nerves singing, until he's panting and his groans sound pained, and he finally presses her down, hard, into the mattress and comes.

She closes her eyes against his neck and breathes.

He moves, but not much, and she realizes they left the patio door open. The cold air is slipping in and sliding over her. The rain sounds steady against the wooden deck. The constant push and pull of the ocean waves lulls her.

His hand slides slowly over her hip. She traces the tattoo on his shoulder. He runs his fingertips down her spine, and he keeps doing it until she falls asleep.

[]

When she wakes, it is full dark. The patio door is closed now and the staccato sound of the rain is distant. Elliot's mouth is on the back of her neck and his hand is sliding between her legs, and it feels so good she just kind of collapses a bit.

He's harder about it this time, and somehow that's better. There's always been passion between them, no matter the emotion. He thrusts deep and it catches her on the edge every time, and when she looks up, he's looking down at her, eyes intense but half-closed.

"Everything's wrong," she says, and he is the only thing she feels connected to these days.

"Then we have to make it right," he says, and he pushes hard and holds himself there deep inside of her, and she thaws. And then she breaks a little bit just for him.

[]

The blanket is dry in the morning, and she wraps herself in it, naked this time, and watches the sky lighten with dawn. The rain still falls, but it is not as heavy. The storm is pulling out, and she watches the ocean calming.

"I told you we couldn't go back," he says quietly from the doorway.

"I know," she replies. She doesn't look at him.

He's silent for a while and she sticks her hand out to catch the rain.

"We can't be partners anymore, Liv," he says, so softly that his voice is just a rasp.

She nods at that too. "I know," she admits. It's a relief, really.

"It's too much," he says.

She just keeps nodding. Walking the streets with him, waiting for a bullet, and she can't keep her gaze from the curve of his mouth, the spark in his eyes. When she catches _his_ gaze, he's always telling her something, silently, and it isn't something they can put back again.

"I was going to ask Cragen when I got back," she says, so he sees why this is happening now.

He nods, wordlessly, and she leans forward against the deck railing, letting the cold, wet mist land on her bare shoulders. She feels him watching.

She waits, and he doesn't leave.

His hand lands on her back, wipes at the rain on her shoulder, and then slides onto her neck. "Let me in," he says.

So she loosens the blanket, and he steps up against her, and his whole body presses in and envelopes her. And he is still so warm. It's startling, and she's colder than she thought. He's like fire against her ice.

"I have to go back," he says, as he leans them both back against the wall, away from the rain. "For a while."

She nods. "Yes."

"To make things right."

She leans her head back against his shoulder. Takes a breath. "Call me then. When you're happy."

"Fuck the phone, Olivia," he says, roughly. "Watch for me coming through your door. You'll know when I'm happy, because I'll be right there."

She swallows the lump in her throat then. "I can't…"

His arms tighten around her. "We've been letting it go wrong for the past eleven years. It's time to set it right. We aren't walking away from each other."

He is right then. They can't go back. They've been trying to hold still for a long, long time now. Afraid of moving, afraid of running aground, trying to tread water so they won't be sucked out to sea. Digging their feet in so they won't crash into the rocks.

It's time to let go and sink or swim. It's time to live.

So she drops the blanket and runs for the unrestrained sea.

He follows right behind her.

~end~


End file.
